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Well, here's the problem: The statements your making are quantifiably incorrect throughout the article, and by large amounts. The article sounds authoritative, but it's not. It's the definition of Internet misinformation. I think getting your opinion out there is important, but to be honest, the article needs a heck of a lot more in terms of disclaimers, and much less in terms of confident statements and grandstanding. I've worked through the best available data. My conclusions: 1) The economic costs of ending the lock-down may be astronomical. This is especially true with what we learn about COVID19 and lung damage (or potentially other organ damage). If even a small fraction of the population is on long-term disability, the costs go up super-quickly. 2) The fundamental costs of the lockdown are cheap. With reasonable economic mitigations, the costs should be that everyone upgrades their car, computer, or similar maybe 6-18 months later, plus an extra 1-5 percent of the GDP. 3) Most of the economic damage of the lockdown, like a cytosine storm, is self-inflicted: bankruptcies, defaults, layoffs, etc. There are reasonable way to manage most of those (and the rest require a very modest stimulus). We haven't taken those steps because we're stupid. 4) If we don't put in systems to manage the economic costs, we'll be super-vulnerable to the next pandemic. 5) This is something which will come up again, and it's also something which is a national security issue. Engineering something like the next COVID19 as a bioweapon is, at this point, within the scope of even poor countries (North Korea, most countries in Africa, etc.), and there's a Moore's Law where the resources go down super-quickly (larger organized crime organizations could probably do this as well now). The point isn't that poor countries are more likely to do this (they're not), but that with 200 countries in the world, the odds that SOMEONE is likely to do this are increasingly high. |
I have a feeling a lot of people advocating ending the lockdown are doing so on the basis that only old and infirm people die, as if the other option is either an asymptomatic infection or a quick recovery from something flu-like.
But I’ve witnessed some very serious infections, so this colors my perception and pushes me toward continuing lockdowns. To your point, the disease can be debilitating foR relatively young, healthy people. Have you ever gotten the flu and then had to re-learn how to swallow after spending a month in the hospital?
Yes corona is mostly deadly to older people, but even for those who do not die there are negative health outcomes which impact their ability to work and take care of themselves. What is the economic impact of that? Why is it not factored into the cost/benefit analysis of opening up?